Emaze

bpost runs more than 600 buildings, from post offices to sorting centres. For several years Emaze has acted as its external energy manager: advice on energy suppliers and savings plans, energy accounting that splits the invoices across departments and shows which buildings to tackle first, and monthly CO₂ reporting for internal and external stakeholders. Together they built an energy management system for the five largest sorting centres, a continuous improvement loop with three key actions each round. One of them was keeping the gates closed longer to avoid cooling losses without slowing operations.

Infrabel, the manager of Belgium's rail network, wanted to make its buildings more energy efficient: offices, logistics buildings, signal boxes, production sites and workshops. Emaze first set the objectives and level of ambition, drew up a metering plan and then connected all energy meters wirelessly to its monitoring system, which flags excessive consumption. Infrabel now follows energy use in every building in detail, no longer needs manual meter readings and can benchmark its buildings internally, the basis for the energy register it needed by 2025. According to Infrabel, its 2022 targets were met and then made stricter.

• Detailed energy follow-up for every building
• No more manual meter readings
• Internal benchmark for the energy register
• 2022 targets met, then raised

Volvo Car Gent, a large and energy-intensive production site in North Sea Port, aims to be climate neutral by 2040. It needed extra know-how to support its small environmental team. Emaze first helped draw up its energy policy agreement, set up monitoring with yearly reporting and proposed efficiency targets with the plant. The monitoring system now includes a mobile app to follow consumption in the different factories every day and a predictive model to step in quickly when something goes wrong. Emaze experts work on site a few days a month and prepare decisions on new projects together with the team.

• Energy policy agreement drawn up and followed
• Daily consumption per factory in a mobile app
• Predictive model to act fast on anomalies
• Realistic data reporting for management

As part of its 2020-2025 climate plan, the City of Ghent offers businesses and organisations free coaching to save energy, with Emaze as energy coach. During an energy scan or quick scan, the coach picks the most worthwhile actions to lower the energy bill and cut CO₂ emissions, then helps plan and carry them out: fleet, metering, tuning technical installations, building plans. Timber company Hanssens Hout optimised its ventilation, arts centre Vooruit turned the scan and earlier studies into an ambitious energy masterplan, and Ghent Dredging combined relighting with solar panels.

Lotus Bakeries needed a new headquarters with a strong look and excellent comfort, and everyone involved aimed for a near-zero energy building (BEN). Working with the architect, Emaze drew up an energy masterplan based on a dynamic simulation. It reduced the amount of building services, added a geothermal heat pump with a borehole field in the garden and solar panels on the roof and facade, and used a climate ceiling for draught-free comfort. A building management system controls all installations, and energy monitoring flags irregular consumption to the technical team. Emaze still follows the building's energy performance and adjusts where needed.

• Energy masterplan from a dynamic simulation
• Geothermal heat pump and solar on roof and facade
• Building management and monitoring with ongoing follow-up

Concertgebouw Brugge is a concert hall but also offices, meeting rooms, a tourist information point and a bar. To improve visitor comfort and lower energy use, it asked Emaze for an energy masterplan. After a full review of the building services, Emaze installed a new building management system so the installations work better together, and fitted extra speed controllers on the air handling units and meters that monitor the temperature in the halls. According to Emaze, energy use dropped sharply and visitor comfort improved. As part of the boiler room renovation, plans followed to replace the collectors and control equipment for more efficient heating and cooling.

• Full review of the building services
• New building management system
• Lower energy use and better visitor comfort